Look, I get that people are mad. The widening difference between the upper and lower classes and the erasure of the middle class is cause for alarm. This country certainly needs business and tax reform. But that's never going to come around from camping out in parks for months on end. What sort of dialogue has come out of Occupy Wall Street?
"The rich are too rich!"
"OK."
"We need change!"
"What do you propose we do?"
"... The rich are too rich!"
Has there been any conversations besides that?
Some would say that the Occupy movement has been able to get people talking about business reform. I couldn't disagree more. The Occupy movement is self-perpetuating; no one is talking about reform. They're talking about the protests. I had a short debate on Twitter recently with someone who supports the Occupy movement. We clearly differed in opinions, and I asked her what propositions are being put forth the change the system as all I've been hearing are the whinings of a spoiled public. She provided me with two links to ideas that were conceived over a year ago. This crisis has been staring us in the face for years. The ideals that the Occupy movement are cowing about were predicted and written about by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki more than 5 years ago. No one listened then, including the protesters of the Occupy movement.
Yes, Big Business is greedy and are taking advantage of the people. Yes, government officials are no longer working in the best interests of the people who've put them in office because Big Business contributes to their campaign funds. Can this change? Yes, it can. Will it? Not by taking the track the Occupy movement have been.
The Occupy movement will have you believe that they are working hard to change things. I don't see hard work. If they want to affect change, they should be taking the battle to the politicians. Get inside the system and change it from the inside. Did we not just pass an election? Has anything changed? Not in New Jersey it hasn't, as most of the incumbents were reelected. Where's the change?
It reminds me of that Breckin Meyer movie, Blue State. Meyer's character moves to Canada because Bush wins the presidency, realizes he made a ridiculously rash decision, so moves back to America to become a politician himself, and actually work to the change he wanted. These protestors aren't working.
I know that Frank Miller is now the most hated man in the comic book industry because of his reaction to the Occupy movement, but he has a point, albeit a poorly worded, unnecessarily austere point. It's hard to take a group of people in designer clothes using expensive consumer tech as they bray on about income inequality. You gonna post a video to YouTube from the rally from your $500 iPhone? Yeah, you're needy.
I would like to see income equality as much as any one of these people. I'm scared to death that I won't be able to buy a house, raise a family, and retire comfortably. Going by my current status, that won't happen. But what I do realize is that standing around a park yelling at a bunch of tall buildings won't change that.
Stop hiding behind your freedom of speech. Yes, Bill Of Rights. You can say what you want. But how about doing something instead? You want to affect real change? Get into the political game and change it from the inside!
My thoughts exactly. I am one of the more liberal people I know, and seriously, what are they proving other than that they can get a bunch of people to sleep in parks? After the second day or so, I don't think most of the people there even knew what the original purpose of the "movement" was. It just turned into a bunch of dirty hippies sleeping in tents just because they didn't have jobs to go to.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support. I have to say, I'm a little surprised that the first two reactions to this post have been positive. Just goes to show that the supporters are just yelling too loudly for the opposite site to be heard.
ReplyDeletei have a suggestion for a solution. if americans really want to change things they need to equip themselves with a better education by their own intiative and formulate a sync plan that will improve society. on an economic scale for our country we are in trouble because we have been screwed over by banks and our politicans, the FED has just printed up more money which has decreased the vaule of our cash in bail outs and bonuses. by this the middle class are becoming the poor as well and soon it will simple be the poor and rich. also we are being dragged down by immagrants by giveing them welfare and food stamps, and the minorities seem to be priviledged more then other citizen. that pisses me off. in other countries you are shot for being an immagrant. we need to stop priviledging these people and stop welfare all together, if someone needs help it should be handle by the community, not the government. we need to gather and get rid of all the immgrants, and then we can happily watch as our crime rate decreases. and i purpose that every citizen that votes must pass a literacy and econimics test and pay a 5 dollar fee. in that way we have more educated people makeing desicions for a country instead of any old fool that doesnt have a clue. with that money we can use it to pay off debts, upgrade our education, and re-enforce our miltary. we need to return to a republic and thrive just like rome before the ceasers. we are on a verge to were a few indivuals can run things for their specail intrest and that will be our ending just like rome. now these people who are at occupy are simply deciding to be outside of our government, thats the whole point of occupy. they are choosing to not utilize the resources that are provided becasue it all comes from the 1%, the people on top making desicions. as far as the 99% idk if were all on the same page but the 99% are those of us who arnt super rich so that does include us all in that catagory. the 1% are on the top; i dont think there all bad and some of them have worked really hard to get where they are, but using their money in special intrest politics is crossing the line.
ReplyDeleteThose who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy
ReplyDeleteThese people might be struggling, but their approach to seeking a solution results from being led like lemmings into ineffective group-think (did you know it was a Canadian website that started Occupy? Yup, it wasn't an idea even born in America). Obama is just as liberal-minded as most of these folks believe they are, but did he protest D.C.? No, he became it's leader. Obama, and this is VERY important everyone so listen up, learned how to play the game. He looks and acts the part and that's how you get credibility. A little hippie dude came up to me once outside a well-to-do shopping area in Colorado Springs and hit me up to join Greenpeace. My first thought was, "this is how you present yourself to people and hope to get respect and attention?" If he had really believed in or thought about the message he was promoting, he wouldn't have cared about what it takes to get it across. That means, cover your tattoos, take off the hemp shirt with the pot-leaf logo on it, pick up a cheap pair of Dockers and a half-decent collared shirt and guess what? People may actually pay attention to you. And maybe it shouldn't be like that, but it is - and any attempt to pretend that it isn't just gets in the way of success. Which is the ultimate goal, no?
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